Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

Here Lactantius translates literally from 0. H., xii. (xiii.) 23, a sermon which now bears the title, " About the Common Mind to Tat." Hermes, however, in the context of the quoted passage, is not writing "about justice," and much less could the whole sermon be so entitled, if indeed Lactantius intended us so to understand it. But see the Commentary, C. H. , xii. (xiii.) 6, and Ex. xi., " On Justice."

xviii. Ibid., v. 25, 11 ; Brandt, p. 579; Fritzsche, ii. 60. THE WORTHIEST SACRIFICE TO GOD

Also in that "Perfect Sermon," when he heard Asclepius enquiring of his son,3 whether it would be pleasing to his 4 father, that incense and other perfumes should be offered in their holy rite to God, [Hermes] exclaimed :

1 Notio dei. 2 Namely ii. 15, 6 ; q.v. for comment.

3 That is, Hermes' son Tat.

4 That is, Tat's father, Hermes.

FKAGMENT VIII.

Nay, nay ; speak more propitiously, 0 [my]
Asclepius ! For very great impiety is it to let
come in the mind any such thought about that
One and Only Good.

These things, and things like these, are not appropriate to Him. For He is full of all things that exist and least of all stands He in need [of aught].

But let us worship pouring forth our thanks.
The [worthiest] sacrifice to Him is blessing, [and
blessing] only.

With this compare the passage in P. S. A., xli. 2 (p. 61, 16, Goldb.). Here again we have the means of controlling the old Latin translator, but not with such exactitude as before, for Lactantius has also turned the Greek text into Latin. But not only from the other specimens of Lactantius' Hermes translations, but also from his present close reproduction of the ordinary wording of the Trismegistic treatises, we may be further confident that the Old Latin translation is free, paraphrastic, and rhetorical, as we have already remarked.

xix. Ibid., vii. 4, 3 ; Brandt, p. 593 ; Fritzsche, ii. 69. MAN MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

But Hermes was not ignorant that man was made by God and in the Image of God.1 xx. Ibid., vii. 9, 11 ; Brandt, p. 612; Fritzsche, ii. 82.

1 See above, ibid., ii. 10, 13, Comment.

CONTEMPLATION

(Speaking of man being the only animal that has his body upright, and face raised to heaven, looking towards his Maker, Lactantius says :)

And this " looking " Hermes has most rightly named contemplation.1 xxi. Ibid., vii. 13, 3 ; Brandt, p. 624 • Fritzsche, ii. 90. THE DUAL NATURE OF MAN

Hermes, in describing the nature of man, in order that he might teach how he was made by God, brings forward the following :

FKAGMENT IX.

From the two natures, the deathless and mortal, He made one nature, — that of man, — one and the self -same thing ; and having made the self- same [man] both somehow deathless and somehow mortal, He brought him forth, and set him up betwixt2 the godlike and immortal

See, for instance, C.H., xiv. (xv.) 1, and K. K., 1, 38, 51 ; also Frag. op. Stob., Flar., xi. 23; and also compare C. H., iv. (v.) 2 : " For contemplator (Qtar-fis) of God's works did man become." It is also of interest to note that Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph., 218 c) enumerates the Theoretics or Contemplatives, among the most famous sects of Philosophers, naming them in the following order : Platonics, Stoics, Peripatetics, Theoretics, Pythagorics.

2 Compare the "setting up betwixt "(eV^eVy . . . tSpva-ev) with the "setting up "of the mind "in the midst " of C. #., iv. (v.) 3.

nature and the mortal, that seeing all he might wonder at all.

WONDER THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY

This idea of " wondering " was, doubtless, a commonplace in Hellenistic philosophical circles and looked back to the Platonic saying: "There is no other beginning of Philosophy than wondering." Compare also one of the newest found "Logoi of Jesus," from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, which runs : " Let not him that seeketh . . . cease until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder; wondering he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest." l

Wondering is the beginning of Gnosis ; this makes a man king of himself, and thus master of gods and men, and so he has peace. The translation of /Baa-iXevarei by Grenfell and Hunt as " reach the kingdom " seems to me to have no justification.